A CLASH between horse lovers over rights to a disputed web address has been resolved after an expert was called in to make a decision.

Frenches Farm Livery, based in Little London, Andover, and operated by Charles and Anna White, has been open for business for around nine years.

But the firm fell out with horsewoman, Natalie Bainbridge, who owns the frenchesfarmlivery.co.uk internet domain name.

The livery business lodged a formal complaint against her with internet dispute resolution service, Nominet.

Mr and Mrs White said the domain name was an essential part of their business and should be transferred to their firm.

But now an independent Nominet expert has handed victory to Miss Bainbridge and rejected the couple’s complaint.

Miss Bainbridge, who once kept her own horse at the livery, said she had set up the website “at her own expense and under her own initiative”.

She told Nominet that she “deactivated” the website to avoid “being involved in a dispute” between Mr White and the livery’s former manager, Katie Jones.

And she had refused to transfer the domain name to the Whites “as she felt she needed an explanation of why they were entitled to it.”

Miss Bainbridge claimed that the complaint to Nominet had “the sole purpose of gaining from her work”.

And she felt that the livery business was trying to “bully her into submission”.

For its part, the livery accused Miss Bainbridge of “hindering the progression of its business” by preventing it from setting up a new website at the address.

It said that Miss Bainbridge could “use the domain name to poach new clients” and that it wanted to “prevent malicious use” of the web address in future.

However, she responded that the accusation that she was trying to damage the livery was based on “unjustified speculation”.

Ruling in Miss Bainbridge’s favour, Nominet expert, Carl Gardner, said the livery had failed to prove that it had any legal rights to the domain name.

Mr Gardner said the firm had not taken steps to protect its name by taking out a trademark and there was no evidence that it had been registered as a company.

It was, Mr Gardner noted, agreed that Miss Bainbridge, of Winchester Road, Andover, had “created” the website that was formerly connected to the domain name.

Mr Gardner added that there was no evidence that the domain name’s registration by Miss Bainbridge was unfair or that it had ever been put to an unfair use.

The expert dismissed the complaint against her and refused to direct the domain name’s transfer to the livery.